Thursday, January 05, 2006

Blowing a double-digit fourth quarter lead to Texas in the Rose Bowl and the inability to stop Vince Young even when you know he's going to run. I guess there's some comfort in knowing we don't have a monopoly on those things.

11 comments:

I was just thinking the same thing, Benny. Watching Vince Young's historic performance tonight made me feel better about last year's Michigan team.

But watching Pete Carroll and Mack Brown tonight, seeing how they had their teams prepared, aggressive, and poised, and then hearing Keith Jackson (!) make the point that these coaches have brought a "new perspective and methodology to college football" makes me feel worse about next year's Michigan team.

My post was in no way meant to justify our passive play in last year's Rose Bowl. At least USC tried various things, including blitzing Young. He was just too good tonight - even better than last year. I don't think he was quite the thrower last year as he is now. I think a blitz or two might have been effective last year. This year, I'm not sure even the Chicago Bears could have stopped him.

Another reason we're not unique: letting Troy Smith break tackles to avoid a sack on 3rd and long. He did it against ND repeatedly. But what the original post and this comment highlight is that other teams - top teams - have a weapon at QB that their teams know how to deploy. We don't have that.

"My post was in no way meant to justify our passive play in last year's Rose Bowl"

Good point, and my comment was not intended to excuse our sit-back-and-hope defense either. Rather, it was meant as praise for Young, who with probably better offensive talent around him last year (ex. C. Benson) still needed late heroics to beat us.

Re. the Bears trying to stop him...they might get their chance next year, as the Jets are on their schedule.

I was also thinking the same thing. Vince Young threw for 180 yards and rushed for 192 yards against Michigan last year and threw for 267 yards and rushed for 200 yards against Southern California this year. It’s not so much that Michigan really sucked, but that Vince Young is just otherworldly good.

Having watched Vince Young in last year’s Rose Bowl and then earlier this season at Ohio State—where he started out a little shaky, but still finished in his usual fashion—I saw this coming.

Maybe all that talk about the 2005 Trojans being able to crush everyone in history—the 1927 New York Yankees, the 1970 Brazilian soccer team, the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the 1940 Wermacht, you name it—was just a tad premature? They do indeed have a great team and Pete Carroll has done an amazing job there, but all the talk about being the best ever BEFORE they played the Rose Bowl was ridiculous.

Another potentially promising note is that Mack Brown for years was harshly criticized for underachieving with strong recruiting classes, blowing big games, not being able to beat his archrival, and conservative and predictable play calling. So, a coach can change—are you taking notes Lloyd Carr?—if he really wants to.

Re baggypantsdevil's comments about Mack Brown's overcoming his criticism, I totally agree. Additionally, there was an article in the L.A. Times where it was remarked that Texas fans had become spoiled over the years and it took some down seasons/ a decade (John Mackovick where are you?) for them to appreciate how fortunate they had previously been to be so successful and how much more the fans now appreciate and don't take their winning program for granted. I think Michigan fans should take heed of this comment as it applies as equally to us, even though we have had only 2 down years (1984 and this year) since 1969 and even those weren't losing seasons. While I'm being the apologist, take a look at the final AP rankings and see how many of Michigan's last 13 opponents are there: 3 of the top 4, 4 of the top 9, 5 of the top 15. Unfortunately we only won 1 of our games against those 5 teams, with many of the losses (and the win) coming in the final seconds. It sucks that we lost those games and I agree that we could have won many and changes need to be made. However, as we pile on our coaches, players, program, I think we need to recognize that we may have just gone through the most difficult 13 game (maybe 14 if you count the 2004 OSU game) stretch in the history of college football and that that (in addition to injuries, poor officiating and poor decision-making) may have something to do with our less than stellar recent performance. GO BLUE!

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